chunk of amber that a man brought me. Call up all the priests and,
here, take your crown.'

"One of the men opens a black hair bag, and I slips the crown on. It was
too small and too heavy, but I wore it for the glory. Hammered gold it
was--five pounds weight, like a hoop of a barrel.

"'Peachey,' says Dravot, 'we don't want to fight no more. The Craft's
the trick, so help me!' and he brings forward that same Chief that I
left at Bashkai--Billy Fish we called him afterward, because he was so
like Billy Fish that drove the big tank-engine at Mach on the Bolan in
the old days. 'Shake hands with him,' says Dravot; and I shook hands
and nearly dropped, for Billy Fish gave me the Grip. I said nothing, but
tried him with the Fellow-craft Grip. He answers all right, and I tried
the Master's Grip, but that was a slip. 'A Fellow-craft he is!' I says
to Dan. 'Does he know the word?' 'He does,' says Dan, 'and all the
priests know. It's a miracle! The Chiefs and the priests can work a
Fellow-craft Lodge in a way that's very like ours, and they've cut the
marks on the rocks, but they don't know the Third Degree, and they've
come to find out. It's Gord's Truth. I've known these long years that
the Afghans knew up to the Fellow-craft Degree, but this is a miracle.
A God and a Grand Master of the Craft am I, and a Lodge in the Third
Degree I will open, and we'll raise the head priests and the Chiefs of
the villages.'

"'It's against all the law,' I says, 'holding a Lodge without warrant
from any one; and you know we never held office in any Lodge.'

"'It's a master stroke o' policy,' says Dravot. 'It means running the
country as easy as a four-wheeled bogie on a down grade. We can't stop
to inquire now, or they'll turn against us. I've forty Chiefs at my
heel, and passed and raised according to their merit they shall be.
Billet these men on the villages, and see that we run up a Lodge of some
kind. The temple of Imbra will do for a Lodge-room. The women must make
aprons as you show them. I'll hold a levee of Chiefs to-night and Lodge
to-morrow.'

"I was fair run off my legs, but I wasn't such a fool as not to see what
a pull this Craft business gave us. I showed the priests' families how
to make aprons of the degrees, but for Dravot's apron the blue border
and marks was made of turquoise lumps on white hide, not cloth. We took
a great square stone in the temple for the Master's chair, and little
stones for the officer's chairs, an